Due to COVID/Army ROM, we have cancelled the holidays this year (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years). This thread is reminding me that, last Thanksgiving after reviewing all the leftovers, we decided to scrap our traditional meal and order a smoked brisket from an amazing new BBQ shop in town instead. I guess we won’t even be doing that now. But here’s what generally happens at our house. We have a wild cooking party the night before T-day; DH, our son, my mom, and myself are all foodies and home chefs, and we have a huge professional kitchen. I make a large pot of clam chowder in the early afternoon, then we put on our white jackets, crank up the music, distribute the decades-old recipe cards, open the champagne, and get busy with the culinary ballet, gliding past each other as we chop, blend, toss, sauté, mix, grill, crimp, pour, bake, stuff, roast, mash, stir, etc. We basically make the entire meal the night before (so T-day is stress free) all the while dipping into the chowder and champagne. It’s the best day/night of the year. However, viewing the spoils after the grand meal the next day, we realize, once again, that almost no one likes yams or squash of any kind, so the pumpkin pie is missing only a slice, the acorn squash was eaten only by my mom, DH makes the Waldorf Salad for himself only and he hates turkey, I refuse to eat cranberry sauce, syrup, marshmallows or anything that has touched a marshmallow or syrup, and the rest of the party picks and chooses as well. Almost no one really likes turkey no matter how amazing and picture-perfect that grilled, smoked bird is. All are well-fed, but it’s a meal made up of individual favorites, no one likes the entire meal. It seems such a waste.
DH and I haven’t nailed down what we’re going to do this year as it will just be the two of us, but I think we’ll end up with smoked brisket, garlic-mashed potatoes, rosemary popovers, that frightening broccoli-cheese dish, apple pie and, of course, lots of wine, champagne, and jazz. Our son usually makes Beef Wellington and Yorkshire pudding for us for Christmas, but he says that unless General Order #1 is revised to allow him to travel from GA to AZ without quarantine, that and NYE aren’t going to happen either. Here’s to 2021—has to be better, right?